On a news website, reader comments sit exactly where two separate liability regimes meet. The site's own reporting is subject to the content provider liability in Article 4 of Internet Law No. 5651; a comment written by a reader is third-party content that the site merely hosts, and it falls under the hosting provider regime in Article 5. An operator who fails to draw this distinction either mounts an unnecessary defence for content it is not liable for, or treats as a mere "comment" a text for which it carries primary liability.
The short answer
Your liability for a reader comment is not the same as your liability for your own reporting. Article 5(1) of Law No. 5651 is an explicit provision: a hosting provider is under no obligation to monitor the content it hosts or to investigate whether unlawful activity is involved. Liability arises under Article 5(2) only once the provider has been put on notice.
- Your own news story, opinion column, headline or image: Article 4(1) of Law No. 5651 — you are liable without any requirement of fault or of having been put on notice.
- Reader comments, forum posts, user uploads: Article 5 of Law No. 5651 — no duty to investigate in advance, but a duty to take the content down once you are put on notice.
- If you edit a comment as an editor, shorten it, or promote it into a headline, you move into the position of a party that "modifies and provides" that content — the definition in Article 2(1)(f) then comes into play.
- Both capacities can exist at the same time; Law No. 5651 attaches these capacities to the activity carried out, not to the person.
Two separate capacities of the same website
Law No. 5651 contains no category called a "news website"; the Law operates through the definitions in Article 2. A content provider is defined in Article 2(1)(f) as "natural or legal persons who produce, modify and provide any kind of information or data offered to users over the internet", and a hosting provider in Article 2(1)(m) as "natural or legal persons who provide or operate the systems hosting services and content". Which of these two capacities arises in which situation is examined in detail in our article on whether a news website is a hosting provider or a content provider.
| Content | Capacity | Legal basis | When liability arises |
|---|---|---|---|
| The site's own news story | Content provider | Law No. 5651, Art. 4(1) | On publication, unconditionally |
| A piece by a contracted columnist | Content provider | Law No. 5651, Art. 4(1) | On publication (the site is in the position of publisher) |
| Reader comment | Hosting provider | Law No. 5651, Art. 5(1)-(2) | At the moment of being put on notice |
| Photo or video uploaded by a user | Hosting provider | Law No. 5651, Art. 5(1)-(2) | At the moment of being put on notice |
| A link given to another site | Content provider — as a rule not liable | Law No. 5651, Art. 4(2) | Under the general provisions, where adoption of the content and the intention to lead users to it are manifest |
| A comment edited or given prominence by an editor | Contested — the "modifies and provides" test | Law No. 5651, Art. 2(1)(f) | At the moment of the intervention |
You are liable for your own reporting: Article 4 of Law No. 5651
LIABILITY OF THE CONTENT PROVIDER
Law No. 5651, Article 4 (verbatim; unofficial translation)
ARTICLE 4- (1) The content provider is liable for any content it
makes available on the internet.
(2) The content provider is not liable for third-party content to
which it provides a link. However, where it is manifest from the
manner of presentation that it has adopted the linked content and
intended the user to reach that content, it is liable under the
general provisions.
(3) (Added: 6/2/2014-6518/Art. 87)
(Annulled by the judgment of the Constitutional Court dated
8/12/2015, E.: 2014/87, K.: 2015/112.)Article 4(1) contains no limiting qualification of any kind: no fault, no knowledge, no warning and no time limit is required. If a story you have published is found to be unlawful, a defence of "I did not know" produces no result under this provision. With reader comments the position is the exact reverse — there the Law has deliberately placed a threshold of having been put on notice.
The link exception in Article 4(2) must likewise be read narrowly. The exception to the exception has two conditions, and both must be "manifest ... from the manner of presentation": that the linked content has been adopted, and that the user was intended to reach that content. Where the two are manifest together, it is not Law No. 5651 but the general provisions (the Code of Obligations, the Civil Code and the Turkish Penal Code) that apply.
The reader-comment side: Article 5 of Law No. 5651 verbatim
OBLIGATIONS OF THE HOSTING PROVIDER
Law No. 5651, Article 5 (verbatim; unofficial translation)
ARTICLE 5- (1) The hosting provider is under no obligation to monitor
the content it hosts or to investigate whether unlawful activity is
involved.
(2) (Amended: 6/2/2014-6518/Art. 88) The hosting provider is obliged
to remove from publication unlawful content it hosts where it is put
on notice in accordance with Articles 8 and 9 of this Law.
(3) (Added: 6/2/2014-6518/Art. 88) The hosting provider is obliged to
retain the traffic data relating to the services it hosts for a
period to be determined by regulation, being not less than one year
and not more than two years, and to ensure the accuracy, integrity
and confidentiality of that data.
(4) (Added: 6/2/2014-6518/Art. 88) Hosting providers may be
classified according to the nature of the work they carry out, within
the procedures and principles to be determined by regulation, and may
be differentiated as regards their rights and obligations.
(5) (Added: 6/2/2014-6518/Art. 88)
(Annulled by the judgment of the Constitutional Court dated
8/12/2015, E.: 2014/87, K.: 2015/112.)
(6) (Added: 6/2/2014-6518/Art. 88) An administrative fine of from one
hundred thousand Turkish liras up to one million Turkish liras shall
be imposed by the President upon a hosting provider that has not
filed a hosting provider notification or that does not fulfil its
obligations under this Law.Paragraph one: there is no duty to investigate
Article 5(1) rejects two activities together: monitoring and investigating whether unlawful activity is involved. The Law has made a choice here: a site that runs a comment section is not burdened with reading every comment and testing it for lawfulness. The same provision is repeated word for word in Article 7(2) of the Regulation on the Procedures and Principles Governing the Regulation of Publications Made on the Internet (Legislation No. 11746).
Paragraph two: once you are put on notice, you must take it down
Article 5(2) ties liability to an event: "where it is put on notice in accordance with Articles 8 and 9 of this Law". The mere presence of unlawful content in your comment section therefore does not on its own create an obligation; a notification in due form must arrive. The process that follows the notification, and the options open to you, are set out in detail in our article on the steps to take when a removal request arrives.
Does Article 5 contain the qualifier "to the extent technically possible"?
This expression, frequently used in practice, does not appear in the text of Article 5 of Law No. 5651. As you can see from the verbatim text above, Article 5(2) says only "is obliged to remove it from publication where it is put on notice"; it carries no technical-possibility qualifier. A similar qualifier did exist for the access provider in Article 6(1)(a); the words "and to the extent that blocking is technically possible" there were repealed by Article 89 of Law No. 6518 of 6/2/2014.
In Article 7(1)(a) of Regulation No. 11746 two phrases were likewise annulled by the judgment of the Thirteenth Chamber of the Council of State dated 12/12/2019, E.2013/239, K.2019/4266, and that judgment became final with the affirming decision of the Plenary Session of the Administrative Law Chambers of the Council of State dated 24/2/2022, E.2020/1851, K.2022/649. The text now stands as follows:
REGULATION No. 11746, ARTICLE 7 (text in force — annulled phrases
left blank; unofficial translation)
ARTICLE 7 - (1) The hosting provider is obliged;
a) to remove from publication unlawful content it hosts, where it is
put on notice of that content by the Directorate, the judicial
authorities or the persons whose rights have been infringed in
accordance with the Law and the relevant legislation,
(...annulled phrase...) and (...annulled phrase...),
b) to comply with the provisions of subparagraph (a) in its
hosting-related services, including server hosting services,
c) to retain hosting provider traffic data for six months, to retain
the accuracy and integrity of that data and the file integrity
values of the data generated together with a time stamp, and to
ensure its confidentiality.
(2) The hosting provider is under no obligation to monitor the
content it hosts or to investigate whether unlawful activity is
involved.The traffic-data retention obligation
The second face of running a comment section is the record-keeping obligation. Under Article 5(3) of Law No. 5651 the hosting provider is obliged to retain the traffic data relating to the services it hosts for a period to be determined by regulation, being not less than one year and not more than two years, and to ensure the accuracy, integrity and confidentiality of that data. What traffic data is is defined in Article 2(1)(j): "the IP address, port information, start and end time of the service provided, the type of service used, the amount of data transferred and, where applicable, the subscriber identity information relating to the parties". The words "port information" were added to that definition by Article 1 of Law No. 7253 of 29/7/2020.
| Capacity | Traffic-data retention period | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting provider | A period to be determined by regulation, not less than one year and not more than two years | Law No. 5651, Art. 5(3) |
| Access provider | A period to be determined by regulation, not less than six months and not more than two years | Law No. 5651, Art. 6(1)(b) |
The sanctions side
Under Article 5(6) of Law No. 5651, an administrative fine of from one hundred thousand Turkish liras up to one million Turkish liras is imposed by the President (the President of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, BTK) upon a hosting provider that has not filed a hosting provider notification or that does not fulfil its obligations under the Law. This range was raised from the earlier level of "ten thousand to one hundred thousand" to its present figure by Article 3 of Law No. 7253 of 29/7/2020.
| Legal basis | Conduct | Sanction | Imposed by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law No. 5651, Art. 3(2) | Failure to keep identifying information up to date | Administrative fine of TRY 2,000 – 50,000 | President of BTK |
| Law No. 5651, Art. 5(6) | Failure to file a hosting provider notification, or breach of an obligation | Administrative fine of TRY 100,000 – 1,000,000 | President of BTK |
| Law No. 5651, Art. 8(10) | Failure to comply with a removal or blocking decision issued as a protective measure | Judicial fine of 500 – 3,000 days (on those responsible) | Court |
| Law No. 5651, Art. 8/A(5) | Failure to comply with a decision under Article 8/A | Administrative fine of TRY 50,000 – 500,000 | President of BTK |
The relationship with Press Law No. 5187
Law No. 5651 is not the whole picture on its own. Law No. 7418 of 13/10/2022 brought internet news sites within the scope of Press Law No. 5187, adding the words "or internet news sites" to Articles 11 and 13 of that Law. Under Article 11 of Law No. 5187, an offence committed through printed works or internet news sites is constituted at the moment of publication, and the author of the work is liable for offences committed through periodicals; in cases such as the author not being identifiable, the responsible editor and the authorised person to whom the responsible editor reports become liable.
Article 13 of Law No. 5187 governs civil liability: for the pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage arising from acts committed through printed works or internet news sites, in the case of periodicals the author of the work together with the owner of the publication and its representative, if any, are jointly and severally liable. We have set out the imprint, responsible-editor and declaration side of that chain item by item in our legal compliance checklist for internet news sites.
What to put in place in practice on the comment side
- An e-mail address and a contact page capable of receiving notifications and monitored regularly. Under Article 6/A(11) of Law No. 5651 the Access Providers Association may notify its decisions to an e-mail address that can be identified from the web pages of the content or hosting provider — in practice that address is an official service channel.
- The statutory imprint (künye — the masthead panel that identifies the publication and those responsible for it) and the identifying information: under Article 3(1) of Law No. 5651 the identifying information must be kept accessible to users and KEPT UP TO DATE. For the detail see our article on the obligation to display identity and contact information on a website.
- A record of the IP address, port information and time stamp for every comment — read together, Article 5(3) and Article 2(1)(j) make this the minimum data set that has to be retained.
- A removal log: a record of which comment was taken down, on which notification, and at what time. That record is a defence document.
- Publication of the comment rules, and a visible statement in the comment area that the content belongs to the reader.
COMMENT REMOVAL LOG — MINIMUM FIELDS
Record no : YK-2026-0147
Comment ID : #48213
Relevant URL : https://ornekhaber.com/haber/1234#yorum-48213
Comment date/time : 12/03/2026 14:22:07 (Turkish time)
Commenter IP / port : 203.0.113.44 / 51422
Notifying party : [name-surname / institution / attorney]
Notification channel : iletisim@ornekhaber.com
Notification date/time: 14/03/2026 09:05 (Turkish time)
Basis of notification : [no. of the Art. 8 decision under Law No. 5651
/ letter from the judicial authority /
application by the person concerned]
Action : Removed from publication
Action date/time : 14/03/2026 09:41 (Turkish time)
Action taken by : [name-surname, position]
Traffic log archived : yes — retention ends 14/03/2028
Note : A full copy of the comment text is kept in
annex-1.Three common mistakes
- Embedding a reader comment into the story and giving it prominence. This can amount to moving into the position of the party "providing" the content, and takes you outside the protective regime of Article 5.
- When a notification arrives, deleting the record as well, when only the comment should have been deleted. The traffic-data retention obligation arises from Article 5(3) and does not come to an end with the removal.
- Not monitoring the contact e-mail address. If the notification was made in due form, the fact that you did not read it gives you no defence of "I was not put on notice".